


Seventy-Nine

by runswithsourwolf



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bucky probably won't show up till at least chapter 4 or 5 tbh, I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm going to be frank, M/M, Modern Bucky Barnes, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Shrunkyclunks, Steve's gotta do the whole ww2 crash a plane song and dance first
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8390824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runswithsourwolf/pseuds/runswithsourwolf
Summary: “And then my soul saw you and it kind of went "Oh there you are. I've been looking for you.” - excerpt from 'I Wrote This For You' by Pleasefindthis It went like this: you aged normally until your 18th birthday, and then when you turned 18 you just stopped. You could be 18 for years and you wouldn’t start aging again until you met your soulmate.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> “You keep telling me to be glad for what we had while we had it. That the brightest flame burns quickest. Which means you saw us as a candle. And I saw us as the sun.”  
> ― pleasefindthis, I Wrote This For You
> 
>  

No one knew why it happened. Science didn’t have a real explanation for it and it didn’t seem like they ever would. People didn’t really care to know the why. They just knew that it did happen and that’s all that mattered.

It went like this: you aged normally until your 18th birthday, and then when you turned 18 you just stopped. You could be 18 for years. Mrs. Schneider down the block was 18 until she was 29 and was knocked over by Mr. Schneider at the deli. He had run into her and insisted on buying her lunch to make up for the inconvenience. They began to see each other regularly and a year later they both realized they had found a grey hair. They got married the next May and were expecting their first born in a few months. 

Sarah Cleary turned 18 in rural Ireland. Her mother was a seamstress and got a good amount of work in their small town and her father owned a nice plot of land that he farmed and raised a strong herd of Galloway Sheep that on he took great pride in. They had a sheep dog named Scruffs and Sarah had a younger sister, Biddy, and an older brother Tim. Tim turned 18 and went to work in the Ballingary coal mines. He was 18 until he was 25 when he met Eliza at a dance hall in Ballingary. They got married 3 years later and had a lovely little girl they named Mary. Biddy was 18 until she was 19. She knew from the time she laid eyes on Colin Foley when they were 10 he would be the one for her and she was right. They married at 20, Colin took over his fathers butcher shop and Biddy worked with her mother. They had a brood of young ones and they could not have been happier.

Sarah knew from the time she was little she would not find her forever in Ireland. She loved it, dearly so, but she was not meant for sheep and sewing and rolling hills and fog. The day she turned 18 she used money she had saved up from working in the village and helping her mother and selling her vegetables from the small garden her father allowed her to keep behind their home and she bought a one way ticket to America. She got accepted into the Bellevue Nursing School and upon graduation began to work in the hospital. 

One evening, when she was on call, a young man was brought in. He had gotten into a fight at a bar and had a gash on his head where a bottle had been smashed over it. Sarah tsked at him as she stitched him up. The young man’s name was Joseph Rogers and he was so enamored with Sarah that he came to the hospital every day with a flower and a smile for her. Sarah Cleary was 18 until she was 21 and Joseph Rogers was 18 until he was 25. By the time Sarah was 22 she became Sarah Rogers. They got a little apartment in Brooklyn and she began to work at the Brooklyn Hospital. 

When Sarah was 23 and Joseph was 27 they began shopping for baby clothes and bought a bassinet from the Dooley family two doors over for the young baby Sarah was expecting. 

When Sarah was 23 and Joseph was 27, he got a letter in the mail informing him that he was to report for training by the end of the week so he could go fight in The Great War. 

When Sarah was 24 and Joseph was 28 and Steve was 6 months old, Sarah received a letter of condolence from the United States Army stating that her husband, Joseph Rogers of the 107th had been killed in action.

When Sarah was 24 and Joseph was dead and Steve was 6 months old, she buttoned up her coat, took Steve across the hall to the Connors apartment and reported to the hospital for her morning shift. She asked her supervisor that evening to put her in rotation for extra shifts. She had a son to feed and rent to pay and she would be damned if she let anything stop her.

It went like this: you aged normally until your 18th birthday, and then when you turned 18 you just stopped. You could be 18 for years and you wouldn’t start aging again until you met your soulmate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the most part life goes on, no more or less exciting than it’s always been. He doesn’t age anymore but he doesn’t think he ever will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When sadness was the sea, you were the one that taught me to swim”  
> ― pleasefindthis, I Wrote This For You

Steve Rogers never knew his father and he had never known what it felt like to be able to get a lung full of air without coughing and his curved spine made sure he never knew what it was like to be able to walk tall and straight and without a hitch to his step.

But that was okay because Steve Rogers knew his father was a great man who died during The Great War and that he loved him and his mother very much. And Steve Rogers knew how to throw a solid punch because the Connors oldest son, Danny, had taught him and he knew how to hold his head high and walk with pride even if his shoulders lilted to the right and he had a hitch to his step.

Steve Rogers may have been small and he may have spent more time in the hospital or sick in bed than any growing boy should have to, but even 2 weeks early and barely alive Steve Rogers was nothing if not a fighter.

* * *

 

On July 4th, 1918, Sarah Rogers went in to labor two weeks prematurely in the middle of her shift at the Brooklyn Hospital. Her supervisor, Elizabeth Andrews, rushed her to a delivery room and personally oversaw the doctors and nurses for the entire delivery.

The delivery was long and painful, Steve wasn’t positioned correctly and the doctor worried that Sarah and her unborn son would die during labor, that was if Steve wasn’t stillborn to begin with.

At 11:42 that night, after hours of labor and cursing and sweating and tears. Steven Grant Rogers made his way into the world. They would quickly find he wasn’t a healthy baby. He was partially deaf, with astigmatism, scoliosis and asthma. He had a heart arrhythmia and would later develop high blood pressure. He would struggle with stomach ulcers and pernicious anemia. But even so Steve Rogers entered the world screaming like a banshee and despite all his health problems there was one thing everyone in the room knew for sure: Steve Rogers was a fighter.

 

* * *

 

As Steve got older he learned how to handle his disabilities. He learned to keep his good ear tilted toward the teacher so he didn’t get behind in class and to stay inside during recess and draw if it was too cold or too hot or there was too much pollen or the air was too thick with smoke from the factories. He learned to always have his glasses with him but to also keep them wrapped in thick cloth and hidden in his bag when he wasn’t using them so the bullies wouldn’t break them. He learned that if he paid attention in class, kept his grades up, and finished all his classwork early some teachers would let him go a few minutes before the school day ended so that his limp wouldn’t make him late getting home (but it was really mostly so he could get a head start and clear out before the bigger boys who liked to push him around were released). He learned that on days he wasn’t allowed to start home early to go to Miss Buchannan’s room after school. She taught the 3rd graders and would let him sit with her and read or draw until she finished cleaning and grading papers. After she finished she would ask him to walk her home and since she lived two floors below Steve and his ma he always said yes. She would ruffle his hair and call him a proper gentleman and sometimes gave him a penny or a cookie when he left her at her door as payment. Steve always tried to refuse, he was just doing what any good gentleman would, but Miss Buchannan would always insist.

As Steve got older he discovered a love of art and a proclivity for getting into fights in various Brooklyn alleys.

He makes extra money by painting signs and ads for Mr. Simon’s grocery store and painting pictures for Mr. Kirby to hang in his diner.

He makes his mother worry by fighting with Carl Hanson for bothering Betty Di Marco even when she asked to be left alone or for fighting Kieran O’Conner for trying to swindle the paper boy out of a nickel.

Sarah makes Steve worry by coming down with a nasty cough the fall before he turns 18. She says she’s okay and that he needs to focus on his studies and not his mothers ‘little cold’. Steve worries anyway.

Steve spends the winter making extra money by stocking the shelves at Mr.Simon’s, making new menus for Mr.Kirby and helping Ms.Walker with the books and inventory at her shop. He doesn’t tell ma that he’s taking the extra jobs. He just stashes the money under the loose floorboard in his bedroom. He tells himself he’s saving it for spending money this summer but really it’s for when ma can’t work anymore. She says it’s just a cough but Steve’s had enough coughs to know better.

Steve graduates from high school that spring and begins keeping the books down at the docks, as well as the work he had already started doing for Mr. Simon and Mr.Kirby and Ms. Walker. Ma has to leave her job at the hospital a week later.

It’s TB but they can’t afford for her to stay in one of the good sanatoriums and he’s heard about the bad ones, no way he would send Ma there.

Mrs. Andrews, his mom’s old supervisor, helps Steve turn Ma’s bedroom into a sick room. She comes by everyday to help take care of Sarah and make sure Steve has enough to eat. Steve isn’t aloud near Ma without a mask on and at his Ma and Mrs. Andrew’s insistence he spends most nights across the hall at the Connors. They tell him they don’t need him to help with rent. Mr and Mrs. Connors both have jobs and so do their two eldest boys Danny and David. The only one who doesn’t work full time is little Mollie. Steve insists on helping with the cleaning and drawing comics for little Mollie anyway as a way of payment.

Sarah Rogers dies a week before Steve’s 18th birthday. They have a small funeral and Steve packs all her belongings up. He sells everything but her and Pa’s wedding rings, his pictures of them, the dishes and his bed and moves to a smaller apartment with cheaper rent a month later.

Steve works his job at the docks, paints and draws to make spare cash and keeps helping at Mr. Simon’s. He pays his rent on time every month and has (barely) enough money left over for groceries and essentials. He scrapes together and hoards his pennies every year so he can buy a new winter coat and for the most part he keeps his head down.

Steve is still filled with a burning desire to do what’s right, he still gets into at least 1 fight a week and he still fights with the tenacity of someone twice his size.

For the most part life goes on, no more or less exciting than it’s always been. He doesn’t age anymore but he doesn’t think he ever will.

Ma always said that even before she met Pa she could feel him out there; she knew all she had to do was look. It’s common knowledge that even when you don’t know your soulmate, even when your hundreds of thousands of miles away you can still feel them. A warm presence just behind your breastbone and you’ll know it’s for sure when you start to age.

The way Steve figures he doesn’t have a soulmate. After all, no one thought he would live to see his first birthday but he managed to fight through that. Steve’s pretty sure that fate planned on him dropping off young but he keeps derailing her plans. He’ll die eventually and he’ll look eighteen when he does it.

But life carries on, soulmate or no, Steve scrapes by, he goes to the dance hall with Danny and David and Stan, he even goes on a date or two when one of the boys can find him a girl. Overall things are going pretty well all things considered.

Steve Rogers has been 18 for almost 5 and a half years when the war starts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So other than Danny, David, Elizabeth Andrews and some of the last name choices I named all of the characters in this chapter after people related to Marvel.
> 
> Miss Buchannon is intended to be Bucky's grandma. I used the HistoricallyAccurateSteve tumblr a lot when I wrote this and one of their posts mentioned that it's likely Buchannon was actually a family name and as James is a very common name, it's likely he's not named after the president at all. I imagine she eventually met her soulmate and started aging sometime around when Steve went to war, but that they didn't have any children until the mid- to late- 50s. Bucky's parents would've been baby boomers. 
> 
> Stan of course is named after Stan Lee. Mr Simon and Mr Kirby are of course references to the creators of Captain America. 
> 
> Carl Hanson is another Kirby creation. He was so obsessed with finding the Abominable Snowman that he eventually turned into him.
> 
> Kiernan O'Conner is the actor who played the loud jerk in the theater who beats up Steve in TFA.
> 
> Amanda Walker (Ms.Walker) is the actress who plays the woman who owns the "antique store" they give Steve the serum in the basement of.
> 
> Mollie Connor is named for Mollie Fitzgerald who played a Stark girl at the expo.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For I may fall and I may fail but I will stand again each time and you will find no satisfaction." - pleasefindthis- I Wrote This For You

“Sorry Son”

 

“Look just give me a chance”

 

“Your ineligible on your asthma alone”

 

“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

 

“I’m doing it. I’m saving your life”

* * *

 

Steve huffed. Grabbing his newest 4F he turned around and exited the recruitment office onto the street. He’d have to catch the train back to Brooklyn and hope he made it back in time for work. There was supposed to be a temporary enlistment office at the expo that night. Maybe he could try there. Maybe they wouldn’t look too closely at his file. He’d have to pick a new hometown though, he’d already been denied in Jersey. Maybe somewhere upstate.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You know you could just help from home? Work in the factories or something, you don’t have to go oversees to serve.”

 

“ I know, Danny, I do, but I want to be out there. Boys younger than me are risking their lives over there and I don’t have any right to do any less than them.”

 

“Yea and a lot of those boys would much rather be in your shoes than half way across the world in the trenches waiting for some Nazi scumbag to blow their head off. I get that you want to live up to your Pa but maybe getting arrested for falsifying enlist-”

 

“You don’t get it, it’s not that I want to live up to my dad. I know it sucks over there and I know I sound crazy for wanting to be there so bad. But it’s just…I feel like…. Why should I get to…..I….There are people who need help and I just want to do something that feels more useful than collecting scrap metal.”

 

“I guess you wouldn’t be Steve Rogers if you weren’t charging head first into someone else’s fight. But maybe just for tonight take a break from this. Stan and I ship out tomorrow for the pacific and David heads to basic next week…”

 

“He enlist?”

 

“Nah, the draft, you know Ma wouldn’t have let both of us enlist. Would have kept us both home if she could. But listen, the Stark Expo is tonight, come with us. One last night out, call it my going away present. ”

 

“Yea, sure Danny. I’ll be there.”

 

* * *

 

 

Howard Stark was not a particularly tall man but what he lacked in height he made up for in bravado.

 

The man moved around the stage like a natural performer and it was hard to imagine that the majority of his time was spent working in a lab and not on a stage.

 

The expo had multiple showrooms all displaying Starks more recent inventions. Shiny metal futuristic contraptions that looked more like they belonged in a science fiction novel than in New York City. He had a whole display solely dedicated to kitchen supplies including a toaster that would put butter and jam on your toast for you.

 

His most sensational invention was being presented at the main stage though, an honest to God flying car and that’s where Danny, David and Stan dragged him. It’s not that Steve didn’t get the excitement, a flying car felt like something one would only ever get to hear about on the radio shows never something that you would see in real life, it’s just that he had other things on his mind.

 

He tried to enjoy the night. Danny and David were practically his brothers, his Ma had worked long hours and Mrs. Connor had been watching Steve since he was an infant. He grew up running after Danny and David. Hell, when Ma got sick Mr. and Mrs. Connor had taken him in as one of their own. And while Stan was technically Danny’s friend he had never hesitated to invite Steve along to whatever they were doing and had spent just as much time pulling Steve out of fights as Danny and David had. He wanted to enjoy his last night with the three of them before they all left but all he could focus on was how badly he wanted to be going over there with them.

 

While Danny, David and Stan were enthralled with Stark’s demo. Steve snuck off. He could see the temporary enlistment center from here; it was only 50 yards away. With any luck he would be back before they noticed.

 

* * *

 

“Boy, a lot of guys getting killed over there…Kinda make you think twice about enlisting huh?”

 

“Nope”

 

* * *

 

The doctor finished his examination and took another look at Steve’s file. Indicating to Steve that he could get dressed he asked Steve to wait a moment and left the curtained off room.

A minute later an older man walked into the room.

 

“ You want to go over seas? Kill some Nazis?”

 

“Excuse Me?”

 

“Dr. Abraham Erskine. I represent the Strategic Scientific Reserve.”

 

“Steve Rogers. Where are you from?”

 

“Queens, 73rd street and Utopia Parkway. Before that Germany. This troubles you?”

 

“No, sir”

 

“Where are you from, Mr. Rogers? Is it New Haven or Paramus? Five exempts in five different cities..”

 

“That might not be the right file”

 

“No it’s not the exempts I’m interested in it’s the five tries. But you didn’t answer my question. Do you want to kill Nazis?”

 

“Is this a test?”

 

“Yes”

 

“I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t like bullies. I don’t care where they’re from.”

 

“Well, there are already so many big men fighting this war, maybe what we need now is a little guy, huh?”

 

Erskine paused before turning to exit the room, gesturing for Steve to follow.

 

“I can offer you a chance, only a chance.”

 

“I’ll take it.”

 

“Good. So where is the little guy from” Erskine peered over the top of his glasses at Steve, “Actually”

 

“Brooklyn”

 

Erskine stamped a 1A onto Steve’s papers.

 

“Congratulations, Soldier.”

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later found Steve in an army uniform, wearing a two big helmet standing in line for his first day of basic at Camp Lehigh.

 

A woman, who looked no older than 18 but looked and spoke as though she had seen and done more than any of them could begin to imagine, paced in front of them. One of the other men in his group, Hodge, heckled her but she very quickly had him face down in the dirt. Steve fell a little bit in love with her right then.

 

 

* * *

 

Basic was brutal for a healthy man but for Steve it was doubly so.

 

However, Steve had spent his entire life fighting and he wasn’t about to give up just because it had gotten harder.

 

When his lungs felt as though they were on fire, he forced more air in. When his limp became more pronounced and his legs felt as though they would fall off, he gritted his teeth and pushed harder. When his heart felt like it was going to tap dance it’s way right out of his rib cage and take off on it’s own, he took a deep breath, let it out and then forced his feet to keep up with it’s mile a minute beat.

 

And when his body felt like it was about to finally give up, his brain gave him an extra push. All he had to do to get the flag down was pull the pin and let the whole flagpole fall, and he got a much-needed break in the back of the truck.

 

* * *

 

“You’re not really thinking about picking Rogers are you?”

 

“ I wasn’t just thinking about it. He is the clear choice.”

 

“When you brought that 90 pound asthmatic onto my army base I let it slide. I thought “What the hell maybe he’d be useful to you like a gerbil” Never thought you’d pick him. You put a needle in that kids arm it’s gonna go right through him. Look at that, he’s makin me cry”

 

“I am looking for qualities beyond the physical”

 

“Do you know how long it took to set up this project? Of all the groveling I had to do in front of Senator What's-his-name's committee?”

 

“Yes, I’m well aware of your efforts.”

 

“Then throw me a bone. Hodge passed every test we gave him. He's big, he's fast, he obeys orders - he's a soldier.”

“He's a bully.”

 

“You don't win wars with niceness, doctor. You win wars with guts.”

 

Phillips huffed out a breath, he would be damned if he let Erskine run the experiment on his pet project. You didn’t send kids like Rogers to war unless you were hoping to send them home in a box.

 

He reached into his pocket to grab the dummy grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it right at the group of soldiers.

 

“GRENADE”

 

And watched as Hodge sprinted away like a startled rabbit and Rogers leaped without hesitation onto the grenade, using his body like a shield.

 

If it had been real he would have saved the whole lot of them.

 

* * *

 

“Can I ask a question?”

 

“Just one?”

 

“Why me?”

 

“I suppose that's the only question that matters.” Dr. Erskine reached under his and pulled out a bottle of wine, turning it slowly so the label faced Steve, he looked him in the eye.

 

“This is from Augsburg, my city. So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own. You know, after the last war, they... My people struggled. They... they felt weak... they felt small. Then Hitler comes along with the marching, and the big show, and the flags, and the, and the... and he... he hears of me, and my work, and he finds me, and he says "You." He says "You will make us strong." Well, I am not interested. So he sends the head of Hydra, his research division, a brilliant scientist by the name of Johann Schmidt. Now Schmidt is a member of the inner circle and he is ambitious. He and Hitler share a passion for occult power and Teutonic myth. Hitler uses his fantasies to inspire his followers, but for Schmidt, it is not fantasy. For him, it is real. He has become convinced that there is a great power hidden in the earth, left here by the gods, waiting to be seized by a superior man. So when he hears about my formula and what it can do, he cannot resist. Schmidt must become that superior man.

 

“Did it make him stronger?”

 

“Yeah, but... there were other... effects. The serum was not ready. But more important, the man. The serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good becomes great; bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because the strong man who has known power all his life, may lose respect for that power, but a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion.”

 

“Thanks. I think.”

 

“Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are, not a perfect soldier, but a good man”

 

* * *

 

The next day Steve rides in the back of a car with Agent Carter all the way back to Brooklyn.

 

His nerves have made Steve more awkward than usual and though he wants to impress Agent Carter, he’s fairly certain he comes off more as an idiot, than he does as anyone should would want to spend any amount of time with.

 

He knows, she’s not his soulmate, he can feel that much, but other than his Ma she is the single most intimidating and impressive person he has ever met in his life and she leaves him star struck and breathless after every interaction.

 

 

* * *

 

Getting the serum is painful.

 

Erskine even asks Mr. Stark to stop the procedure when Steve’s screams become to much but Steve assures them that he can handle it.

 

The serum works and while Steve enters that metal tube a 90 pound kid with a grocery list of medical issues, he steps out 6’2” and 240 pounds.

 

His pants don’t fit anymore.

 

A under cover hydra operative had come in with the senator.

He shoots Dr. Erskine.

 

* * *

 

When Steve accepted Dr. Erskine’s offer the last thing he anticipated was that he would become “The Star Spangled Man With A Plan”.

 

But here he is, on a stage in Poughkeepsie, with 22 women dressed in matching red, white and blue dresses singing and dancing while he socks ‘ol Adolph’ in the jaw and reminds the crowd that each defense bond purchased is a bullet in the barrel of their best guys gun.

 

Tomorrow they’ll get on a plane to Europe and instead of fighting, he’ll be participating in a choreographed dance number.

 

Good thing he does a mean jazz hand.

* * *

 

The show doesn’t go as planned.

 

He hasn’t even begun his speech before they’ve started jeering he turns around immediately to head off stage. The girls are better at this than he is anyway. They can come up with something to entertain the soldiers.

 

He finds himself sitting on a milk crate outside his tent drawing in a sketchbook he picked up in London.

 

“I imagine this isn’t what you planned on doing when you met Dr. Erskine”

 

Steve is pulled out of his drawing and looks up to see Agent Carter wearing her uniform as always, hair pinned up, lips a sharp red, and …

 

“Agent Carter. You look older.” Steve says a smile playing on his lips.

 

“Yes” Her lips quirk up slightly before her brow pinches together “ I met him not long after I came over. He’s a lovely man. Phillips is under the impression that it’s you however.”

 

“Me? No, I’m not…. I haven’t aged in over 6 years now.”

 

“ You’re not,” she confirms “ but with the serum no one can really tell that you haven’t aged as well. Besides, he thinks the reason I advocated so much for you to fight was because I wanted to be with you. You’re a great man, Steve, but I am rather fond of my Daniel.”

 

“ I would imagine so,” Steve chuckled “ You said you met him after you flew over. Is he here?”

 

“ No, I’m afraid he’s in London at the moment. He was injured during battle. He has badly wounded his leg and will be sent home once he’s healed up enough. He’s one of the lucky ones however; the rest of the 107th was captured. You were performing for what was left this evening.”

 

“ Captured? Is a rescue being planned?”

 

“ No, I believe Colonel Phillips rescue strategy at the moment is simply to win the war.”

 

“But it’s almost the entire 107th, plus whatever other men they’ve managed to capture. He can’t just leave that many men there hoping to win the war. They’re as good as dead.”

 

“He’s aware but we have so few men left and no intelligence on their base. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.”

 

“We have to try.”

 

“What are you going to do walk 30 miles behind enemy lines?”

 

“If I have too.”

 

“I can get you a pilot.”

 

* * *

 

Steve looked down through the open hatch at the bottom of the plane.

 

Howard Stark, THE Howard Stark, has maneuvered through the worst of the enemy fire like he was doing nothing more stressful than a drive through the countryside. Howard had pointed him towards the parachutes stacked behind the pilot’s chair and informed Steve he had one minute before he needed to make the jump.

 

Peggy stands from the co-pilots chair and walks back to face him. Her expression is no more serious than it ever is and her confidence in him makes Steve feel a little less petrified of what he’s going to do.

 

“If you need any thing, call us, we’ll pick you up as soon as we can”

 

She hands him a small black communicator. He puts it in a satchel attached to his belt and nods at her.

 

“10 seconds till you jump, Rogers”, Howard shouts over his shoulder.

 

Steve nods, forgetting that Howard cannot see him, takes a deep breath and jumps out of the back of the plane.

 

“Did he take a ‘chute?”

 

“No”

 

* * *

 

Steve makes his way as close to the Hydra facility as he can on foot before having to scramble his way into the back of a truck.

 

The second the truck is parked he makes his way in through the back door. He can see why Philips was reluctant to send more men here. The facility is heavily guarded and deep in the woods. It would be next to impossible to send a group of more than five maybe six men at most in here undetected.

 

Steve sticks to the shadows as he makes his way down long corridors and through a factory like room where hundreds of Hydra workers are producing weapons before he makes it to the long row of cages where the prisoners are being kept.

 

 

* * *

 

Steve knocks out an oblivious passing Hydra agent before snagging the mans keys and heading to unlock the cage closest to him.

“Head up the stairs and out the side door to your right. There are a lot of men up there but there are more down here. Grab whatever weapons you can and then make your way out to the woods, head due north. I’ll meet you when I get everyone out.”

 

The men look at him like he’s crazy or a hallucination and no one moves. A black man in a torn army regulation jacket steps forward and looks him up and down.

 

“Who are you supposed to be?”

 

“Captain America”

 

Steve turns moving down to the next cage in the row, he hears a man with a British accent call out as he goes.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

There are more men crammed into the next cage he gets too. A redheaded man with a large mustache and an Asian man stand closest to the doors as he approaches. He doesn’t waste time, shoving the key into the lock and giving them the same instructions he gave the last group, as he shoves their door open and begins to step away the redhead reaches out to snag his sleeve.

 

“ Do you know what you’re doing?”

  
He looks concerned, as though he thinks Steve is some vastly unprepared kid who managed to wander here by accident; it’s best not to let him know that he’s mostly right.

 

“Yeah. I knocked out Adolf Hitler over 200 times.”

 

 

One of the men in one of the final cages informs him that they had taken a prisoner to a back room that morning. Steve hoped he would be able to get all of the men home safe but by the time he gets there the boys body has already gone cold. He takes one of his tags and a pin tucked into his lapel. At least then there will be something for Phillips to send home to his family.

* * *

 

When he makes it back into the factory portion of the base from the underground tunnels there are no more workers in the main room and he can see Zola and Schmidt making their way across one of the widow’s walks. He intends to block their exit. Hoping that if he has to be blown up he can at least take them down with them. Instead he listens to a supremely egotistical villain speech and has the immense displeasure of learning exactly why Schmidt’s followers call him the Red Skull.

 

By the time he gets back out side he’s found that five men (whose names he will later learn are ‘Dum-Dum’ Dugan, Gabe Jones, James Falsworth, Jim Morita, and Jacque Dernier) have commandeered a Hydra tank and have made quick work of Hydra soldiers.

 

His communicator is shattered, but they load the injured men on the tank and make their way back towards base. If he doesn’t get court martialed or sent home immediately Steve may have an idea as to how to use the information he gathered from being in the base.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Dum Dum put his pint on to the bar table and looked Steve dead in the eye, “So, let's get this straight.”

 

“We barely got out of there alive, and you want us to go back?” Gabe questions.

 

Steve smiles, “Pretty much.”

 

The corner of Falsworth’s mouth twitches up, “Sounds rather fun, actually.”

 

“I'm in.” Jim burps, wiping the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

 

Gabe turns to Jacque and they begin speaking in rapid fire French before Gabe turns back to Steve with a smile on his face.

 

“We're in.”

 

Dum Dum chuckles, his mustache twitching up as he shakes his head, “Hell, I'll always fight. But you gotta do one thing for me.”

 

“What's that?”

 

“Open a Tab.”

 

 

* * *

 

Saying that the Howling Commandos are successful is and understatement. With the information Steve gathered off a map he saw in the Hydra base they manage to methodically burn down Hydra’s bases one by one.

 

They liberate villages and tear down their strong holds.

 

They manage to cut off various supply routes and forms of communication Hydra has and smoke out some of their other bases.

 

And with a particularly daring raid on a train, they even manage to capture Zola alive.

 

It’s after capturing Zola that they manage to get the information on Schmidt’s final stronghold and his plans for the tesseract. He lasts just long of enough to be convinced to give them the information before the poison in his steak kicks in and he dies.

 

Which is how Steve manages to end up here. On a plane that he can’t land, Schmidt dead and Tesseract at the bottom of the ocean.

 

Steve takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what he knows he has to do and switches his coms back on.

 

“There’s not gonna be a safe landing but I can try to force it down.”

 

Peggy’s voice crackles to life at the other end of the coms.

 

“I’ll… I’ll get Howard on the other line. He’ll know what to do.”

 

“There’s not enough time. This things moving too fast and it’s heading for New York. I’ve got to put it in the water.”

 

“Please don’t do this. We…we have time we can work this out.”

 

“Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer people are going to die. This is my choice.”

 

Steve takes a deep breath and forces the planes nose towards the earth.

 

“Peggy…”

 

“I’m here”

 

“I’m gonna need a rain check on that dinner with you and Daniel.”

 

“All right. A week next Saturday, The Stork Club”

 

“Alright. I’ll make the boys find me a dame. We can make it a double date.”

 

Steve hears a watery chuckle before Dum Dum’s voice pops up on the line.

  
“I don’t think even we can find a dame willing to deal with your crazy ass Rogers”

 

“Nah, with those big blue eyes, I’m sure we’ll find you someone real pretty, Cap” Morita chimes in.

 

“Yea, the Captain’s a movie star ya know. They’ll be lining up ‘round the block for him.” Gabe adds.

 

Even across the ocean and through a staticky communicator Steve can hear just how subdued their voices are.

 

“All right, the boys will find me a dame and I’ll be there. What time, Pegs?”

 

“Eight O’clock. On the dot. Don’t be late”

 

“Alright. I’ll be there. Ya know. I still don’t know how to dance”

 

“I’ll teach you.”

 

“I’d hate to step on....”

 

* * *

 

The first thing Steve notices when he wakes up is that he’s warm. Not just that his bodies warm. But that he’s warm from the inside out. He can’t recall the last time he’s felt like this.

 

The second thing Steve notices is that the game on the radio was a game he went too.

 

The first thing Steve notices when he opens his eyes is that the nurse’s hair isn’t pinned up above her collar but is instead loose and flowing to her shoulders.

 

The second thing he notices is that the wall by the door doesn’t quite reach the floor. A sliver of light peaking out from underneath as though it’s just a temporary structure put up in a hurry.

 

It takes Steve twenty-five seconds after waking up to bursts through the temporary wall and out into streets that are just familiar enough to be recognizable as New York but so vastly different that he’s dizzy with it.

 

* * *

 

He makes it to Times Square before he’s surrounded by a fleet of non-descript black cars that look like nothing he’s ever seen before.

 

A black man with an eye patch and a trench coat steps out of the one in front of him and raises his hands in a placating gesture.

 

“At ease, soldier! Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you slowly.”

 

“Break what?”

 

“You've been asleep, Cap. For almost 70 years.”

 

Steve feels like he’s been hit with a train. Everything in his head is telling him that it’s impossible but he’s looking around a new world full of things that are screaming that what the man’s saying is true. As he feels like his entire body is being drenched in ice water and the fear and panic begin to rise up inside him he clings to the comforting but unfamiliar warmth just behind his breastbone like a lifeline.

 

“You gonna be okay?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I just... I had a date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fitting the entire basic/serum/WWII experience in one chapter was a lofty goal and honestly cost me most of my sanity. There are so many good moments in TFA that I wanted in there, that absolutely had to be scrapped because they either don't fit in without Bucky or the romantic undertones between Steve and Peggy or they would have just taken up too much space and I want to get to the parts of the story with Bucky more than I want to just type up the entirety of TFA.
> 
> I intended to have Steve come off as the friendless, bullied, social pariah he was in the movies but instead I gave him more friends than he had in the movies and I'm pretty sure he just came across as spirited force of good. 
> 
> Feedback is appreciated.
> 
> Also my tumblr is Th3WinterSmolder :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is my winter song to you.  
> The storm is coming soon,  
> It rolls in from the sea
> 
> My voice; a beacon in the night.  
> My words will be your light,  
> To carry you to me."  
> Sara Bareillis- Winter Song

James Buchanan Barnes was not named after the 15th US President.

Buchanan was his grandmothers maiden name and his mother thought the name James was dignified.

So, James Buchanan it was.

But he would prefer if you called him Bucky.

* * *

 

Bucky lived a perfectly good, average life.

He had two parents, Winifred and George, who loved him with all their heart and a little sister, Becca, who only got on his nerves sometimes.

His family wasn’t rich but they had enough money to afford a spacious apartment in Brooklyn and ensure that their kids never truly wanted for anything.

But there were a couple things that set Bucky apart from the other kids in his neighborhood.

The first was that he didn’t mind anchovies on his pizza. He didn’t necessarily like them but pizza was pizza and they were really just super salty tiny fish so he would still eat pizza even when it had anchovies on it and every one in his first grade class thought that was really weird.

The second was that he was really smart. Lots of kids are really smart and even more parents seem to think their kids are really smart (whether or not their kid is even actually that smart). But Bucky was really, really, really, REALLY smart. Like Mensa smart.

His kindergarten teacher was the first to notice.

While all the other kids were working their way through ‘Frog and Toad Together’ or ‘ I Want My Hat Back’, Bucky had devoured the Box Car Children series. It was incredibly impressive but not enough for his teacher to suggest advanced placement.

 

It was his first grade teacher, Mr. Reynolds, who first approached his parents about it.

Bucky blew through his class work so fast that Mr. Reynolds had started giving him more advanced work sheets. By the end of the year Bucky was reading on a high school level, doing algebra and had a better grasp on his U.S. history than Mr. Reynolds did. So Mr. Reynolds approached his parents.

Bucky spent the summer taking tests and filling out applications with his mom at the kitchen table.

By the time the new school year had rolled around he had been accepted to The Anderson School in Manhattan. It was a longer commute and he had to wake up earlier but he got to ride the subway all the way there with his dad in the morning and that was fun. Plus the classes weren’t as boring anymore! He still picked up material quicker than his classmates but his teachers encouraged it and came up with fun activities that made him think and he loved it. He loved that the kids were just as into school as he was and that the teachers never seemed bothered that they had to come up with harder assignments for him sometimes.

 

The third thing that made Bucky different was the warmth.

All the other kids talked about the warmth they felt.

Danny talked about how he knew Jackson was his was soulmate even before they turned 18 because the first time he saw him he felt like he was on fire. But not a bad on fire, fire like the first time you get to light your fireplace when it gets cold outside.

His mom told the story of how she had always felt the pulsing warmth behind her breastbone and how when she met dad the warmth filled her entire body, like when you take a real big gulp of hot cocoa.

Bucky didn’t have the warmth.

It’s not that he didn’t feel anything. It’s just that instead of warm he felt cold.

It wasn’t really a bad cold. It was like the feeling of that first morning before winter started when you can finally see your breath in the air. Or the cold you feel when you’re skating at the Rock and you get a good look at the big Christmas tree.

Bucky didn’t mind it. Winter was his favorite season and he loved the snow and hockey and making snowmen and snow angels, so he wondered if it meant that his soulmate liked those things too.

Sometimes he worried though. What if he felt the cold because his soulmate was too cold? Did they not wear their jacket or mittens like he was sure their parents told them too? Did they live somewhere real far away, where it was super cold, and he would have to travel really far to find them?

But for the most part, Bucky didn’t mind the cold.

And as he got older the ever-present cold behind his breastbone wasn’t even something he thought about.

* * *

 

When Bucky finished 8th grade he took the SHSAT and was accepted into the Brooklyn Technical High School.

Which meant he was still in all accelerated classes but that now he didn’t have to wake up crazy early in the morning and take the subway to Manhattan.

He majored in Mechatronics and Robotics during his last two years and graduated top of his class and with a full-ride scholarship to MIT.

At MIT he majored in Electrical Science and Engineering and Minored in Biomedical Science. He maintained his grades and snagged a coveted internship at Stark Tech. Industries his Junior Year. He managed to keep the internship during the summer before senior year and received a job offer for after graduation before he even made it back to MIT to finish up his last two semesters. Bucky accepted and became the youngest employee at Stark Tech by probably 15 years.

Bucky had been 18 for 4 years when the ever-present cold behind his breastbone turned into a steady, comforting warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've finally got a Bucky chapter!!!  
> I'm going to have to switch back to Steve next chapter so now that I've got them in the same time, I can work on getting them in the same place. 
> 
> Comments/Kudos/any feedback is so so appreciated!!
> 
> Th3WinterSmolder.tumblr.com <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. And that's the tragedy of living."- 'I Wrote This For You' by pleasefindthis.

There were a lot of things Steve didn't fully understand about the 21st century.

 

He caught on to technology quickly enough. Computers were beyond useful and he loved how he could draw on his tablet without having to worry about wasting paper. 

 

He loved the social changes that had taken place. Though he didn't really think it had been enough. It was certainly better than when he was a kid.

 

He loved that he didn't have to boil all his food.

 

He didn't understand purposefully ripped pants and he wasn't a huge fan of dubstep. He found he loved listening to Hip-Hop and Rap when he worked out and that he quite enjoyed Punk music on occasion though his favorite artist he had found so far was someone called Bon Iver (which he thought was an odd name but he had heard of odder).

 

Despite all of the changes in the 21st century, he found a lot of social mannerisms were the same.

 

You still avoided eye contact on the subway. You still avoided eye contact walking up and down the street. There were still people who were huge assholes. But over all not much had changed.

 

Which is why Steve felt he was well within his right to be surprised when someone came knocking on his door at midnight a week and a half after S.H.I.E.L.D had released him into a complimentary apartment in Hell's Kitchen.

 

Steve looked through his peep hole at a man in a professionally tailored suit who had a distinctive goatee and sent a flood of memories through him.

* * *

 

 

Steve had barely opened the door when the man stepped into the apartment and thrust his hand out to introduce himself.

"Anthony Stark. You can call me Tony. I believe you knew my dad, Howard."

"Yes, yes. During the war, I worked quite a bit with Howard. Was the-"

"Yea he talked a lot about you. Which is also why I am currently in possession of some of your belongings I thought you may like to go through. I also wanted to chat about your living arrangements and a particular situation you and I may find ourselves facing soon. If you had the time of course."

"Oh yes. Um I have nothing but time. Would you like to do this during the day though?"

Steve's last comment seemed to startle Tony. Setting him off his game for the first time since he entered the room. He watched as the man glanced out the window, and appeared startled by the fact that the sun was no longer in the sky. He shook it off quickly and if Steve wasn't as good at reading people as he was he probably wouldn't have even noticed.

"Yes. Yes. Sorry for the late hour. I tend to get distracted when I'm in my lab all day. Not a lot of natural light. Does tomorrow work for you? We could do lunch around one?"

"Yea tomorrow is fine."

"Great. Stark Tower, one o'clock. I'll see you there Captain Rogers."

He then handed Steve a sleek looking business card and was out the door as quickly as he had entered it.

* * *

 

Steve took advantage of technology that evening to google 'Tony Stark'.

He found the man was indeed the son of Howard and Maria Stark.

He had grown up going to some of the best schools in the country, winning countless science competitions. 

He had been accepted into MIT at 15 and had graduated top of his class. He had multiple Doctorate degrees and was one of the richest men in the world. He had become CEO of StarkTech at 21 after Howard and Maria had been killed in a car accident.

He had also made a bit of a reputation for himself. 

He had a flair for the dramatics and seemed to enjoy hard liqueur, fast cars, and women in excess. It appeared he had met his soulmate, a woman by the name of Pepper Potts, when he was 32 and she became his assistant. Not much about his life change other than him no longer having an endless parade of women in his life. Rumors about his relationship with her had saturated the media but the one that seemed to have the most truth to it was that the couples relationship was heavily strained but his lifestyle and seeming addiction to alcohol.

 He was as infamous as he was famous. 

Then in late January of 2010 he had been captured by a terrorist organization called the Ten Rings while doing a weapons demonstration. He had been missing for just over 4 months before he had been found by locals in the middle of the desert surround by broken metal parts. He did not openly talk about his time in captivity but upon his return he officially made Pepper the CEO of StarkTech and closed down their weapons program in favor of focusing on biomedical technology and clean energy. 

Under Pepper's rule the company flourished. While StarkTech had certainly be incredibly successful with Tony at the helm and Pepper's business skills shown through and their profits showed a marked increase over her first two years. And while StarkTech had already been a hugely philanthropic business (Tony was just a free with his giving as he was with taking shots it seemed) StarkTech started hosting their own charity benefits and began working on developing high end prosthetics at reduced costs. 

What really grabbed Steve's attention however was what happened to Tony and the company directly after he stepped down as CEO. 

Originally, it was a very rocky power transfer. Obadiah Stane, a friend of Howard's and Tony's long term confidant and business partner, and the board of investors were very against the closing of the weapons division but ultimately it was Tony's decision and despite their protests there was little they could do. 

However, not only did it seem that Stane had continued to siphon off company money to fund weapon's research but that he had also been pocketing a hefty sum of money from going below the board to sell StarkTech weaponry into the black market. Using information Pepper had gathered, and disguised in an improved version of a weaponized suit he had used to escape from Ten Rings, Tony managed to take down Stane and give information of his crimes and his apparent involvement in Tony's kidnapping and imprisonment. 

Tony then went on to reveal his identity as Iron Man in a press conference. And had since gone back to doing what he wanted to do in the first place, which was invent things.

 

As one would expect, Tony had changed a lot since then. The once heavy drinker and partier was seldom spotted out anywhere that wasn't a charity gala and Pepper and him seemed quite happy together.

Steve was impressed. Though the man's (apparently still) self centered attitude and entitlement rubbed him the wrong way, he had been through a lot and came out stronger for it where so many other men would fall. 

That did not mean Steve was any less perplexed by his midnight visit. 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve had a habit of waking up with the sun.

It was something he brought with him from the army. And the therapist who gave him his psych eval mentioned it would be good for him to get into a routine so he took advantage of it by making it a point to get up early and exercise. 

It was working out for him pretty well. He had met a vet. named Sam during one of his jogs through Central Park. They got coffee after at a local bodega most mornings and he enjoyed getting to talk to someone who had combat experience. Sam had suggested he come sit in on some of his meetings at the VA but Steve was still debating. He knew he should. He knew mental health care was light years better than when he was a kid and that this would actually help but he still hesitated. It didn't matter that the men and women in the meetings had been through things as awful as, if not worse, than what Steve had been through, he was still a relic from WWII come back to life. He was still a distraction and he felt like he would be out of place in the meeting. 

After coffee with Sam, Steve usually went to the library or a museum or something to spend time trying to learn what had happened while he had been on the ice. He had graduated with a superb GPA in high school given all his medial absences and now he had what amounted to a 5th graders History and Science education. So much had changed in the last 70 years. Unfortunately, he had to meet Tony, so after finishing up with Sam it was straight back to his apartment to shower. 

* * *

 

If there was one thing it seemed that all Starks had in common it was a certain over the top flair. 

Stark tower was one of the tallest buildings in the area, which was impressive given New York City. It appeared to be almost entirely made of reflective windows and had Stark's name in giant letters adorning what appeared to be a helicopter pad at the very top. The atrium was large with some seating areas, security guards and a huge help desk that had a multitude of television's behind it all playing captioned news broadcasts from around the world.  There were framed awards and news paper articles about the StarkTech clean energy and the biomedicine programs and a recent one from National Geographic on how Stark had managed to create the most successful tech company in the world while reducing his environmental impact to 0.

Steve didn't let himself get too distracted though before he approached the young man stationed at the help desk and gave him his name. 

He was then sent to an elevator and told it would take him where he needed to go. 

Imagine his surprise when he entered the elevator and was greeted by a disembodied voice who knew his name and exactly where to take him.

"Good Afternoon Captain Rogers. I am JARVIS, Mister Stark's A.I. We will be going up to Mister Stark and Misses Potts private quarters so you may join them for lunch."

(The future is wild.)

* * *

 

The lunch was wonderful. 

Tony was boisterous and moved at 3,000 miles a minute. He reminded Steve greatly of his father. Both men had more brains than they knew what to do with and took incredible pride in their work. They also were very well aware that they were the smartest in whatever room they were in and had no issue letting everyone else know.

But Tony also had a self destructive streak his father didn't (if Pepper's mentions of him missing meals and sleep and getting lost in his head in his lab all day were anything to go by). He had been warned, by JARVIS, that "Sir tends to try to alienate people. Insulting them and the like. Do not take it personally, Captain Rogers, I believe it is merely a particularly offensive coping mechanism". So he expected it. He also noticed that Tony's social skills were severely lacking when compared to his father. But then again, Tony had been an MIT grad before most kids his age had finished high school and Howard had built his business by charming everyone within a hundred mile radius of him. 

Pepper however formed a wonderful counter point to him. 

She was reserved where he was loud, she maintained steady conversation and was able to real him back in with little effort. Steve could see how they worked so well together. Without Pepper, Steve could easily see how Tony would spin out of control.

After their meal, the three of them retired to the living room where Tony brought up the reason he had asked Steve there that evening. 

"First of all my father lead the search for your plane when it went down. Most of the stuff you had left with friends after you went to basic stayed with them. I don't know where that is now. But just about everything that you had left when you got on that plane went to him. I still have most of it in a storage vault here. You're welcome to go through it pull what you want, donate what you don't want, burn what you want no one to see. I don't really care. Some of your notes on strategy were donated to the Smithsonian or at SHIELD's schools, they use them in classes, I think."

"Thank you, Tony. I appreciate your family holding on to that and your father trying to find the plane."

"Yes, well. Aunt Peggy and him never really did give up. Would have been nice if he took sometime out of scouring the ocean floor with a fine tooth comb to see his son grow but you know, what can you do."

"I'm sorry. I don't really know-"

"Don't worry about it. When my old man wasn't searching for you or locked away in his lab he was raising me on stories of how great you were. I resented you for a long time, but I've been to therapy since and have accepted that I was projecting my feelings of inadequacy and anger at my father's lack of love and compassion towards me and inability to spend time with me onto you. I made you the scape goat when in reality these feelings were directed at my father. That was of course all compounded by his and my mother's untimely death and resulted in what was frankly a very destructive downwards spiral. I've done the whole acceptance forgiveness whatever schtick. Water under the bridge so to speak. If you haven't been to therapy yet, i highly recommend it. Pepper can put you into contact with someone if you would like. JARVIS is also particularly good at it."

"Thank you, Tony. I'll look into it."

"Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I have more important things than your 70 year old box of treasures and my rocky relationship with Daddy Dearest to discuss with you. I'm sure you're aware that SHIELD is watching you. Cameras in most rooms of your apartment, audio feed where the cameras aren't, your neighbor is a SHIELD agent, the man across the street is a SHIELD agent, the little old woman who owns the bodega below your apartment has pistols stashed all over the store and two assault rifles disguised as brooms."

"Yes, I...had noticed. There isn't much I can do about it though. I haven't received my back pay yet, there isn't much precedent for this length of time, so I can't exactly move out. SHIELD's set me up with a temporary account, for the essentials, but they can track that too. Even if I wanted to go underground I don't have the means. I couldn't even go to a friends, Tony, everyone I knew is either dead or dying."

"Well consider us friends, Rogers, I'm offering you a rent free, un-surveyed apartment in Stark Tower and access into my accounts until you can get your own. Even after really, I'm not hurting for cash."

"Tony, I couldn't thats too much-"

"No listen, Capsicle, I know there's no way your comfortable with a bunch of strangers sitting on computers all day watching your every move. You don't like being this reliant on the government because you don't like knowing they could step in an request you be there guard dog at any moment. And I'm sure, a righteous man like you, feels guilty with tax dollars paying for your existence when you know that money could be going to provide health care or planting trees instead of your coffee order. A coffee order that SHIELD knows by heart because I'm sure the same stiff in a suit is sitting in the corner of your favorite coffee shop with a newspaper and you get to go in everyday and pretend you don't notice. I know you don't like being watched and I know you don't like being dependent on a government that could turn around and use you as their attack dog or the face of whatever propagandist bullshit they choose to spew fourth. I'm offering you the ability to not have 'the man' watching your every move and to be financially independent from them. You don't need to be living like you're in 1984."

"1984? What happened in 1984?"

"No, nothing happened, well stuff happened, but it's a book by George Orwell. Good read. We have a library here it should be in. You're more than welcome to it as well. Lord knows Pepp and I don't use it nearly as much as we should."

"Thank you, Tony, I appreciate this more than you know, you have no idea. But I can't just put you and Pepper out like that."

"You wouldn't be. Cap, I haven't always seen eye-to-eye with my father. There's been a lot of bad blood there and, as I mentioned, a lot of therapy. But at his heart he was a good man. He did somethings I don't agree with, but he did them for the right reasons. He started creating weapons so that he could arm who he perceived as a good guy, he didn't think about how those weapons would inevitably end up in the hands of the bad guys. He didn't think about who the good guy is, is subjective to what side you're on. That's why I shut down the weapons program. I didn't want to be a part of something that resulted in the deaths of children and innocent civilians. It wouldn't have mattered if I got rid of Stane and scaled the program down to trade only with the US and our allies like my father intended. Governments become corrupted. People become corrupted. And innocent people die. For every terrorist killed by a Stark weapon, another terrorist used a Stark weapon to kill children or civilians or our own men killed children or civilians as collateral.  My father didn't think about that when he created Stark weapons, I was....made aware of it. And I've been trying to turn this company around ever since, or rather Pepper's been successfully turning this company around ever since. He created a monster, there are still Stark Weapons in the hands of horrible, horrible people. But at his heart he was a good man and he fully believed in you. To hear him tell it, you were good and righteous and always stood up for what was right. You were a good man before you were a good soldier and you remained a good man long after they gave you the shield. He wouldn't have wanted you to live like you are now. He would have wanted you to stay. I don't want you to live like you are now....I want you to stay. You wouldn't own Pepper or I anything. You wouldn't have to pay us back. At most she may ask if you would be interested in making an appearance at a charity gala, but you can say no. When you get your back pay, if you want to pay me rent, you can. But I can assure you I will more than likely use it to improve your apartment."

"I thank you Tony...I don't know what to say....If you and Mrs. Potts truly don't mind I would love that."

"We don't. I have residential floors already made up. We can get whatever belongings you have at your apartment that belong to you. And have you moved in, in a few hours if you would like."

"Yes. Thank you. That would be great. I don't really have much that's mine, so I can probably do it on my own."

"Nonsense. I'll send Happy and car with you. He'ld probably love to get out of the office and help."

"Thank you. Tony, thank you so much, you have no idea how much this means to me."

"Don't get to grateful on me yet. There's still one more thing we need to talk about. My father didn't manage to find you, but he did manage to find the tessaract."

"Please tell me they left it."

"They did not. He took it back to the SSR, SHIELD now, they didn't know what to do with it for a long time. In recent years, I've heard they've begun to implement it into their weapons development research. I imagine it's only a matter of time before it ends up in the wrong hands. I wanted you to be prepared when that happens."

Steve's jaw clenched and if he had been holding anything it would have broken. He did not drop the tessaract at the bottom of the ocean so that they could turn around and mess with it the same way Schmidt had been. He didn't crash a plane into the ocean and live as an ice cube for 70 odd years for this shit. 

"I also know that Fury is working on developing a team of superheroes. Well he refers to them, us, as 'enhanced individuals' but what he means are superheroes. He's already approached me. I wasn't mentally stable enough at the time but I've changed quite a bit and while I wouldn't allow myself to be turned into a government puppet, if it was the moral thing to do, I would not say no. I'm sure he'll be asking, Dr. Banner if he can find him. Bruce Banner, you can look him up, publicly a scientist, not publicly the Hulk. I'm sure he has some other SHIELD agents or contacts on deck he'll be wanting to join. He'll be asking you to join as well."

"He wants to start a team of superheroes....that could go very well or very poorly. But I'm sure he's already aware of the risks."

"Yes, well Fury is nothing if not a stubborn risk taker. He calls it the Avengers Initiative."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO UPDATE.  
> I can't promise that updates for this will be more regular. Mostly because this story has been relatively challenging for me to write. It's been hard trying to decide how I'm going to manipulate the MCU to fit what I need it to be doing while still putting all the basic building blocks together.  
> I will promise to TRY to update more regularly though.  
> Unlike the movies route, I chose to give Tony more character development and had him learn from his and his fathers mistakes and gave him some therapy to help with the PTSD and make him less of a raging, self-centered, douchebag.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And strum my fingers gently across your skin, like I was playing the slowest love song in the world and only you and I could hear it." - I Wrote This For You by Pleasefindthis

Bucky hadn't made it more than 5ft into the building before Linda Morales was grabbing his bicep and chattering his ear off about something or another that he couldn't quite keep up with. 

 

Bucky had worked with Linda since he had started at StarkTech. Short and curvy with thick rimmed brightly colored glasses and natural hair that she always seemed to keep a pen or two stored in the woman often looked more like an eccentric librarian than a one of the most highly regarded scientists in the alternative energy field in the world. It was a common mistake for new hires to see her brightly patterned clothes and bubbly personality and underestimate her but in reality Linda was one of the most (if not the most) brilliant people Bucky had ever had the pleasure to meet.

 

"....and he moved into the tower yesterday afternoon. Happy said he's expecting S.H.I.E.L.D. to be none to pleased about it, how could they not be, they were monitoring the poor man like some sort of criminal and not a war hero. Poor guy probably has all sorts of issues he needs to work out and having 24/7 monitoring probably isn't helping with that. It just seems irresponsible of them, ya know?" 

Linda turned to look up at him, clearly waiting for a response that Bucky did not have because he had no idea what she was talking about. 

 

" Linda," Bucky said " I'm gonna be honest. I haven't had my coffee yet and I have no idea what you're talking about." 

 

"Bucky" she huffed " You really need to keep up. Captain America moved into the tower."

 

* * *

 

 

The move had been relatively painless. 

 

Steve hadn't been lying when he told Tony he didn't really have much. Besides a few knick knacks and personal effects that he had on him when he crashed the Valikyre, and the clothes, laptop, some charcoal pencils, his sketchbook and history books he had purchased using the stipend S.H.I.E.L.D had given him until his backpay got sorted out everything in the apartment belonged to the agency. 

In total they managed to pack Steve's entire life into two duffle bags and one cardboard box. It had looked incredibly depressing stacked next to the front door as Happy and him had made one final sweep of the apartment to turn off all the lights. He didn't even need Happy's help to carry it, but the older (well technically younger) man insisted on helping. 

 

His floor at Stark Tower was something Steve couldn't have come up with in his wildest dreams. 

Pepper had met him at the elevator and had happily show him around.

It was furnished in tasteful black and whites. The living room had a fireplace with a flatscreen television mounted to the wall above and black leather couches on a white rug over a dark hardwood floor. The walls were white the high ceilings gave the already massive room the illusion of being bigger.

One entire wall was made up but a window that looked out over the city. In the tower, he was high enough up that he could see over most of the other buildings straight across the water to Brooklyn. Pepper had thoughtfully purchased an easel and a drawing desk along with more charcoals and a beautiful set of oil pastels. 

("Tony said Howard mentioned you often drew in your downtime and there are a few old sketchbooks in with your personal effects in storage. I thought you might enjoy the lighting in here but you can move it all of course." )

(He wouldn't. Pepper was right, the lighting was perfect and the view of the East River had his fingers itching to draw. More than they had since before he had shipped out.)

 

Next she had showed him the kitchen. With it's stainless steal appliances and wide countertops it looked more like something out of futuristic comics Danny liked to read than how the kitchens Steve had grown up with looked. It was stocked with food already and had a keurig, microwave, two ovens, a stove top and a fridge that would have taken up his whole kitchen in the 40's. 

 

There was a guest bedroom, already furnished, with a simple but gorgeous guest bathroom attached and sizable closet. 

 

Then Pepper showed him his room. 

It was massive, easily bigger than his entire apartment from before the war. It had a desk and a sitting area and King sized bed. There was another fireplace and a Television and large picture windows with thick curtains to block the light out if he wanted. The attached bathroom looked like nothing Steve had seen before. With a large walk-in shower with an oversized shower-head and a massive separate bathtub it was like something out of a dream. 

 

After the tour Pepper handed him a new Stark phone. 

"It's yours to use however you like, S.H.I.E.L.D won't have access to this one. It has a few numbers already programed in, my personal and work phone, Tony', Happy's, my assistant, and the front desk and a few local delivery places. There's a folder that I had my assistant, Scott, put maps of the area in and a list of local bodegas, drug stores, restaurants, clothing stores, that sort of thing in. Why don't you take the rest of the day to get settled. If you need anything just call out for Jarvis and he'll help you. I'm sure Tony will be by at some point today. If you would like, Tony and I were planning on watching some movies and having pizza for dinner and we would love if you would join us."

"Pepper, I can't thank Tony and you enough for this. This is incredibe.."

"Steve, it's nothing." Pepper interjected, "The residential portion of the Tower is huge, much to big for just Tony, Happy and I. Trust me, you're doing us a favor. It will be nice to bring some more life into the place."

Generous, strong and kind, Pepper reminded Steve of Peggy more and more every time he spoke with her. 

Pepper and him finished their goodbyes before she went off to run her company. 

Steve took a moment to breathe and take in his surroundings before finally making his way over the the drawing desk to try out the oil pastels. 

* * *

 

 

Gossip spread quickly in the tower so it was no surprise that everyone seemed to be talking about the newest resident. 

 

Bucky would be lying if he said he wasn't curious and at least a little starstruck. His grandfather had been one of the soldiers from the 107th that Captain Rogers had saved in Azzano and his grandmother had known the Captain when he was still just a boy from Brooklyn.

Grandpa Barnes had told stories about him from the war. Talked about how they all thought they were done for when a man in blue tights with a tin shield showed up and managed to save them all. Talked about how the Captain had been awkward and shy but kind and had looked out for the men he saved as thought they were old friends. He said that despite saving all those men, the Captain didn't think he was a hero, had felt he was only doing what was right. But if there was one thing that the war and the Captain had taught Thomas Barnes it was that true heroism was often just someone standing up and doing what was right even when it was hard or dangerous or when everyone was telling you to sit down and mind your own and that true heroism didn't brag but was quiet.

His Grandpa had been sent home after Azzano and Grandma Barnes couldn't have been more overjoyed to have him back in one piece. When he had told her it was Captain America that had saved him she had written him a letter thanking him. She wasn't really supposed to know who Captain America was but everyone in Brooklyn had heard rumors. Rumors that Captain America was a super soldier, he had been a part of an experiment that had made him big and strong and fast. And that the experiment had taken place right in their own borough. There was no proof of course but the large blonde man running through the streets and saving that little boy had been more than enough proof for most. And in one small corner of Brooklyn there were those who knew, that this hero who had run into a fight against insurmountable odds could be none other than their own Stevie Rogers. Even pumped full with super serum there was no denying that the national icon was one in the same as the skinny, tow-headed little boy with the heart and confidence of a lion. It was with this knowledge that Alice Barnes nee Buchanan penned a letter to Captain Steven Grant Rogers thanking him for saving her soulmate and promising all the cookies he could eat when he returned home. 

She hadn't expected a letter back, she hadn't even really expected him to remember the teacher he hadn't seen but in passing since he was 10.  Captain America was recieving hundreds of thousands of letters a day from adoring fans but of course a reply came. It wasn't much, just a short letter expressing his happiness that Thomas had made it home to her safe, that he was just doing what any good man would, and letting her know he looked forward to the cookies. At the bottom was a small but beautiful drawing of the old school and making their way down the front steps was a younger Alice with a tiny Steve by her side.

The letter wasn't much but she kept it carefully pressed within the pages of her diary just the same. And when she told stories to her kids and grandkids of the tiny, tow-headed boy with the crooked spine that struggled just to breathe but had the heart of a lion turned Hero, if they were good she would sometimes pull the old letter out. 

But growing up with stories like that meant he was very aware that the Captain America people saw in the propaganda videos and history books wasn't the real Captain. It was a caricature of the man the Captain actually was. The boisterous charming man who was the basis for the Hollywood blockbusters and comic books was a part the Captain played to sell war bounds. The real Captain America wasn't chasing down Hitler and sucker punching him in the jaw or taking out an entire Hydra base on his own with a single flame thrower and a cigar in his mouth and some damsel in distress on his arm. He was a great man who did incredible things and saved his Grandpa's life and then went on to save the world at the cost of his own. 

He was a hero, and in Bucky's opinion better than the hero Hollywood had created, but he wasn't the hero his coworkers were talking about. They were talking about the Captain spit out savage one liners while single handedly defeating villains, the Captain everyone he knew had grown up watching in theaters and t.v. screens and seeing on the pages of comic books. 

The Captain America living upstairs was the awkward and shy man who walked his Grandma home from work and saved his Grandpa's life and became a legendary war hero.

Growing up with Grandparents that made sure he knew that the Captain America he saw in movies and even the Captain he learned about in school was nothing like real Steve Rogers meant that while his co-workers heard Captain America was living in the tower and thought of flashy lights, quotable movie lines and big explosions, Bucky thought of the note and drawing that his Grandma still kept tucked between the pages of her old diary. 

So Bucky was curious about the legendary hero living in the Tower and he was certainly star struck, but he was more interested in the man who drew the picture than the Captain America and frankly currently more focused on the specifics of creating an prosthetic that could communicate with the brain and respond like a regular limb. 

* * *

 

 

Nick Fury was not necessarily displeased that Rogers had moved from the apartment in the Hell's Kitchen. After all, Tony was not wrong when he brought up the Avenger's initiative to Steve and the two men already having a positive rapport between them would only serve to help him in the long run.

But he also wasn't really happy about it. 

First of all, Rogers was being monitored, not incredibly closely but the point stood that it had taken his agents an hour to notice the man had moved out. In their defense he hadn't had much to pack so there was no drastic change in appearance to the apartment and he had left roughly around the time he would leave in the morning to work out but he still expected more of his "highly trained" agents. 

Everyone though Fury was a hard-ass who was too demanding on his employees but really most of his employees were just incompetent. 

 

But his employees incompetence wasn't the only thing bothering Fury about this latest development. 

The fact of the matter was that S.H.I.E.L.D knew very little about Captain Rogers. At least, not much more than the general public knew. The test with the hospital room set when he first woke up showed that Steve was just as brilliant as any of his agents, more brilliant all things considered, and that he wasn't just the handsome poster child for a team of men who did the real work as Fury had feared. 

But other than that they didn't know much more about the man other than that he was strong and fast with accelerated healing and had saved a lot of lives in a war 70 odd years ago. 

They knew, from having Peggy Carter at the helm for so many years, several anecdotes about his bravery and skill and kind heart but Agent Carter had been running a government agency not leading story time so even that information was scarce. 

 

Fury needed to know what kind of man the Captain was. A powerful enhanced individual whom the world was more than willing to trust was dangerous. Was he the sort of man Fury could rely on to not become a threat? Could he be manipulated by S.H.I.E.L.D's enemies? How willing would he be to listen to orders? Would he get in the way? 

But so far in the week or so of surveillance they had gotten all they had was the man's coffee order and workout schedule and now he had moved into a building that Fury was not able to get surveillance of any type into and his only in with the building was a genius with a super suit and an ego. 

He couldn't even go in with the excuse of wanting to enhance their security in case enemies of the state came sniffing around the newly defrosted American Poster Boy. Stark ran the most successful tech corporation in the world, was a trillionaire and had publicly declared himself Iron Man. The man was the only one who knew how to build or repair suits like Iron Man or War Machine's. Security at the Tower was better than the Hell's Kitchen apartment, probably better than anywhere else in the world.

Which left him with one option: send in someone who appeared to be non-threatening, who was charming and approachable and could give them an in with Rogers. 

He needed someone who could think quickly on their feet if need be but was also genuine and good, traits that would most likely endear him to the Captain.

The man who came to mine at first was of course Coulson. 

He trusted Coulson, he wouldn't have made him his second if he hadn't, he was a good man and out of everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D his extensive "research" meant he probably knew the most about the Captain. He was a good man, was a relatively open person for a spy and he knew Stark and got along decently with Stark which given that the Rogers had moved in with the man should lead to him viewing Coulson as trustworthy. 

 

He would pull surveillance but then send Coulson in, have him do regular checks to ensure the Captain was adapting well to the 21st century, answer any questions and to keep eyes and ears on him. Hopefully, they would build a rapport and he would be able to use that to get a better feel on the Captain.  The plan wasn't perfect but it would work for now, when the time came they would go from there.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't necessarily uncommon for Bucky to be asked up into the residential floors on the Tower. 

Tony Stark usually worked out of a personal lab on the top floor of the tower in the residential area and when Bucky pitched and began working on the advanced prosthetics project he found himself working more collaboratively with Tony than usual. 

Tony had a hand in just about all of the advancements being made within his company since stepping down as CEO. Whether it was developing the base tech like the usage of the adapted arc reactor as a clean energy source or even just with approvals and adjustments like he did with their phone and laptop lines. 

But he was by far most involved with advanced prosthetics. 

The project involved the use of a lot of refined movements and pieces that needed to behave they way a real limb would, some of tech for which Tony helped him adapt using the Iron Man suit as a base. But beyond that creating communication between the prosthetic and the brain and making sure everything was as refined, stable and perfect as it needed to be had become something Tony was taking a personal interest in. 

Bucky was the only worker assigned to the project as of yet, it had been his idea, and until they had the basic skeleton and kinks worked out just the way they wanted it Tony and he didn't see the point in taking people out of their established project to work on this, yet.

So it was typical for Jarvis to page Bucky that Mr. Stark had invited him up to his lab. Typically Stark would have either made a break through during the night or he wanted Bucky's input or a second opinion or just to get a full update on where the project was and to talk through where it was going.

So Bucky wasn't the least bit surprised when Jarvis informed him that Tony would like to see him in his lab and that his key card had been temporarily approved to access the residential floors.

 

 

Tony as usual wasted no time getting straight to the point, he pulled up the last set of designs they had made and dove right in as soon as Bucky stepped into the lab.

They were close to a eureka moment, Bucky had felt it for the past few days and he knew Tony had as well. Once it hit them Bucky just knew they would be close enough to start thinking more practical and less theoretical. Bucky couldn't recall the last time he had been this excited for a project.

This was why he had gotten into biomedical engineering. He wanted to find new and innovative ways to help people and this would be revolutionary. He had been talking Becca's ear off about this project for months and he couldn't wait to finally have something to show for all the hours spent pouring of schematics and diagrams that he and Tony had done. 

 

 

They had probably spent a solid 3 hours before they managed to come up for air. 

It wasn't necessarily willingly, merely Jarvis reminding Tony that he had asked the Captain to come to the lab at 4 and he would be arriving in approximately 5 minutes. Bucky began gathering up their print outs and started to save some of their edits on his stark pad.

"I'll go ahead and get out of your hair then, Tony," he said "Have a good rest of your day."

"Nonsense, Barnes. Stay." Tony replied, " You're up here often enough while we're working through this, meet the good Captain. It will only be a few minutes, just want to see how he's settling in. Then we can run through this last bit, we're onto something."

Bucky nodded and spread his papers back out across the table and hunched back over them but his mind wasn't on the work anymore.

His inner dialogue was a constant stream of, "Don't freak out about meeting Captain America. Don't mention you have a drawing he did of your grandma and him 70 years ago. He's just a person, who did great things. Your Grandma taught him to read. Stay calm. Be cool. Stay Calm. Be Cool." and he suddenly felt like he had taken multiple expresso shots back to back. 

It felt like he had only been lost in thought a couple of seconds but suddenly the elevator doors were opening and Tony was hollering across the room. 

"Captain! About time you made your way up to my humble abode."

"I got here 2 minutes early Tony. If you wanted me sooner...."

"No, no just an expression. Anyway, I just wanted to see how you were settling in...."

 

Bucky zoned out of the rest of their conversation. He had seen the old photos in textbooks and watched the old film reels, everyone had. But they had not prepared him for this. 

Captain America was gorgeous. Like Old Hollywood movie star gorgeous. He was built like he was chiseled out of marble and his jawline looked sharp enough to cut steal. Bucky hadn't been prepared for Rogers to have the same sense of style his grandfather had had but the way his arms bulged under his rolled up sleeves was certainly doing it for Bucky. Bucky gave himself a mental shake and tuned back into the real world just in time for Tony to start dragging the man towards him.

"My apologies, no one has ever accused me of being a good host. I should have introduced you two when you walked in, Steve."

Bucky stood up as Tony dragged the Captain towards him, with one last internal " BE COOL, BARNES. KEEP YOU SHIT TOGETHER" he turned towards the two men.

" This is Bucky Barnes. He works for Stark Tech with biomedical, he's spearheading our latest project. Barnes, this is Steve Rogers."

"It's a pleasure, " Steve said extending his hand towards Bucky. This close the Captain was even more beautiful. His eyes somehow managed to be blue, gray, green and gold all swirled together like a kaleidoscope. 

Bucky reached out to shake the man's hand, "The pleasure's all mine, Captain."

Bucky wasn't prepared for the heat that enveloped him when his hand touched the Captain's. It felt like he was being lit on fire, in the best kind of way, and he couldn't fully hide his sharp intake of breath at the contact. From the way the Captain's grip faltered before squeezing tighter and the widening of his eyes and he thought he could feel it too. 

"Oh, um please, Dr. Barnes, call me Steve. Tony said you and he were working on a um project?"

"Then call me Bucky." Bucky could not be more glad Steve was asking about work, Bucky could talk about work in his sleep. He wasn't sure he had the ability to hold a much deeper conversation than this at the moment. " But yea, advanced prosthetics. The goal is a prosthetic that's able to do everything a naturaul limb could do and is wired into the brain so it could be controlled just as one would control a natural limb. We're only in the theoretical stages just yet, though"

"That's incredible.." Steve began to say before Jarvis' voice rang through the lab.

" I'm sorry to interrupt, sir, Captain, Docter. But Agent Coulson from S.H.I.E.L.D is here. I believe he's looking for the Captain."

Tony huffed rising from his chair he tilted his head towards the ceiling, "Thank you, J. Tell him we'll be down shortly." Before turning towards Steve and Bucky. 

"Figured they would come sniffing around at some point. Coulson's not bad though, better get this over with." He turned towards Bucky adding a "Take a last look over everything but I think we should be ready to start working on prototypes. Shoot me a message if you can think of anything else we need to tweak otherwise i'll see you up here tomorrow."

He didn't give either of them a chance to reply before he turned on his heel towards the elevator. 

Steve turned back to Bucky, "Sorry, to leave so abruptly. I'ld love to hear more about your work sometime. It was nice meeting you."

Bucky managed to stutter out a "Thanks, you too." as Steve turned towards the elevator to join Tony. 

 

After the elevator doors closed, Bucky collapsed back into his chair. He felt a tug on his pant leg and looked down to see one of Tony's bots, Dummy, offering him a bottle of water. 

" Thank you, Dummy" he breathed out, reaching down for the bottle, " I need this. Holy Shit, he's even hotter than the pictures. He's incredible."

Dummy whirred in what Bucky assumed was agreement. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the super long gap in between chapters again. I'm not going to promise it will get better, because it probably won't. 
> 
> This is the longest fic I've ever written by a lot and my inspiration isn't as flowing as readily as it was when I started. BUT, I will be finishing it. This work won't get abandoned and just collect dust for years. I've got a basic outline I'm working off of and parts will probably feel forced or rushed and I'm hoping my writing will get better as I go and it will take me a long time to get to the end but I will get there. 
> 
> Anyway to make up for the long as hell wait for this chapter here are pictures of what I imagine Steve and Bucky looking like:
> 
> Steve: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5a/be/11/5abe11fd8398b12eb21ff5ed08a4b4a7.jpg
> 
> Bucky:http://static.tvgcdn.net/mediabin/galleries/shows/g_l/ki_kp/kings/season1/kings04.jpg <\- Just less sad. It's hard to find pictures of younger looking Seb were he isn't dressed tragically.  
> Case and point:  
> http://static.celebuzz.com/uploads/2009/11/18/msg-125856407536-3.jpg  
> The face is there, but what sort of knock-off twilight bs is that. 
> 
> And for those curious, Linda is named after Linda Fite, one of Marvel's first female writers, who wrote The Cat and of course get's her last name from Miles Morales.  
> If you read OMGCP, I picture her as looking like an older Ford. (who looks like she's going to be snagging the role of favorite character at some point <3)


End file.
